The British public are “not nostalgic” for the pre-Brexit past but are pragmatic and want to move forward and “deepen” ties with the EU on trade and the economy, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said.
Signing an agreement in Brussels to cooperate closely on competition issues, Kyle said he thought the deal was “a real vindication of the reset and the relationships that have emerged between the EU and the UK” since Labour came to power.
He said it marked an alignment on strategies on issues such as mergers and acquisitions, the result of frequent conversations the two sides were now having.
The European Commission executive vice-president, Teresa Ribera, said it was “a privilege” to sign the deal, which was “reinforcing the current good cooperation” with the UK.
Kyle said the public was behind the pragmatism now producing closer ties with Europe, which could drive economic growth.
“The public did vote for a government that had a reset with the EU as its core foreign policy in the election. So I think the public have always been looking forward and they’re not really nostalgic for the past,” Kyle told reporters.
Among the initiatives the UK would like to join is a “Made in Europe” scheme, expected to be announced next week. It will prioritise European products in public procurement, but there remains tension around the exact quantity of goods that should be European in procurement contracts.
The French-led European Commission’s push was originally scheduled to be presented on Thursday but has been the subject of lobbying from opponents within the EU, who believe France is being too protectionist.
Ribera said the role of the Industrial Accelerator Act was to strengthen the EU’s resilience and loosen dependence on foreign countries in a scheme that could increase local employment and wealth creation.
Asked whether the UK would be part of the deal when it was unveiled, she said she did not do “spoilers”. Personally, she added, she always fought battles in favour of “friendships, mutual cooperation and enhanced prosperity and fairness for all”.
Kyle said he was in Brussels not to demand a slice of the action, but to listen. “I am not coming here to lecture or to cherrypick but to talk about all the really exciting things happening in Britain … particularly when it comes to manufacturing,” he said, citing existing UK-EU cooperation on Airbus.
He said the trade and cooperation agreement secured by the former prime minister Boris Johnson was “not comprehensive enough or ambitious enough” and it was imperative to improve on that as both sides shared the same challenges.
His remarks came as the EU parliament president, Roberta Metsola, said that the UK and Britain must go “even further” than the Brexit reset.
Kyle, asked about the disruption to the US trade deal, said he hoped that there would be “clarity” in the “coming days” from the US administration, which might return to the principles of the trade deal secured last May with Donald Trump.
The US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV in the US that he intended to stick to the 10% tariff the UK had secured.
“The point is to recreate the policy that we’ve developed over the past year, to give continuity and be able to be in a position where we can honour the deals, but also have enforcement available,” he said.